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Wednesday, 19 October 2016

Roast Scotch Beef with Watercress, Horseradish & Grana Padano

Last Thursday I ventured to the capital for the biggest event in the food calendar; the annual Observer Food Monthly Awards, held at the Freemasons Hall.

There are 10 reader categories and 5 categories decided by a Michelin starred panel of judges. Here you'll see big names such as Jamie Oliver winning an award alongside a lesser known fisherman from Padstow. All equally as deserving.

I was invited along as a guest of Scotch Beef, sponsor of the Best Sunday Lunch category, and with whom I've previously worked, on my recipe for Beef Fajita Burgers. It was a night of food and drink, with a little bit of celeb spotting thrown in for good measure. Food for the evening was created by Swedish raised Marcus Samuelsson of Red Rooster, Harlem (soon to be coming to Shoreditch), and there were cocktails aplenty.You can find out more about the #OFMAwards, the winners, and photos of the evening at the Guardian online.

As Scotch Beef sponsored the Best Sunday Lunch category I wanted to put together a dish that takes two of the main components of a Sunday Lunch, and give it a twist. The silverside of beef was roasted with a crust of English mustard powder, sea salt and black pepper, as per the Scotch Beef website, before slicing and tossing with a salad of balsamic roasted plum tomatoes, watercress and shavings of Grana Padano, as inspired by a recipe of seared carpaccio of beef in the Jamie Oliver 'Return of the Naked Chef' book. The salad is then served in a jumbo yorkshire pudding!If this was served on a Sunday in the pub down the road (which, incidentally, was one of the runners up in the Best Sunday Lunch category) I would be straight down there!

(if you're a little unsure of your oven temperature and want to make sure you don't under or over cook your meat then I would recommend a Thermapen thermometer, which gives an accurate reading in just 3 seconds)

whilst the beef is roasting, make the yorkshire pudding batter

using the weight of the eggs out of their shells, weigh an equivalent amount of plain flour, milk and self raising flour, and whisk all the ingredients together

set aside

Once the beef is cooked to your liking, leave it to rest

turn the oven up to the highest temperature

place some fat into 4 x 6-8" round baking tins and place in the oven for 10 minutes

pour the batter into the tins and return to the oven

turn the oven down to 200C and cook for 25 minutes, until the yorkshire puddings are puffed up & crispy

remove the beef from the baking dish and add 2tbsp balsamic vinegar to the juices

add the tomatoes to the dish and roast for 15 minutes

carve the beef into thin slices or strips

add a handful of watercress, some beef strips, roasted tomatoes and some shavings of Grana Padano to each large yorkshire pudding

drizzle with some of the balsamic juices and horseradish before serving

If, like me (before conducting some research) you don't know the difference between 'Scotch Beef' and 'Scottish Beef' this will explain all.

It explains why the quality of beef you get from a Scotch Beef PGI butcher is so good. Where to buy.